


an ode to the roads that do not meet rome

by sensibleshroom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: A treatise on why elves shouldn't have blasters, Bad Elvish Translations, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Fluff and Angst, Galadriel!Fay, I'm trying okay, Implied/Referenced Incest, Kid Fic, M/M, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Reformed Maeglin, Trying REAL hard, canon is an impolite suggestion and I'm god now, for a short time, fucking conlangs, multiple star wars eras, not all characters will be listed, reincarnation hijinks, via chaotic single parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensibleshroom/pseuds/sensibleshroom
Summary: Maeglin made quite a lot of mistakes in his life. Marrying another elleth to throw Turgon off his scent, throwing in his lot with Melkor, impregnating his wife when he could have simply not done that, subjecting his son to a life on the run, dying defending his child's body when his son was a scant three years old, burning Gondolin, stubbornly insisting on marrying Idril when he also could have simply not done that, dying when he was a parent with responsibilities, in case that hadn't been mentioned, again, burning Gondolin and throwing in his lot with Melkor...A great many mistakes had been made, and when Mandos offered him the choice of reincarnation far, far away from the aftermath of his mess, all for the sake of his son, who didn't deserve the curse he was doomed to, well...Maeglin had never been accused of bravery.The spaceships were a surprise.
Relationships: Maeglin & Galadriel, Maeglin & Original Male Character, Tarre Vizsla/Maeglin
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

“Ada…” The soft voice and pulling at his clothes was what stirred him, and Maeglin blinked once, twice, opening his eyes to view a ceiling made of the stars. “Ada, losseä…”

_ That _ raised Maeglin’s alarm faster than anything else, and in a moment he was sitting up, because an elf such as Faeglyn did not  _ feel _ cold. There sat the little one, big brown eyes welling with confusion fixed on his father, dark skin more pallid than Maeglin had ever seen, lower lip pushed in a pout, his hair in a mess, and in a moment, Maeglin was placing a hand on his head, checking him for a chill, brushing his hair from his eyes.

In his panic, it took him longer than he should have to realize he was  _ also _ cold, and that was never a good place to be. Faeglyn’s flesh was frigid to the touch, and Maeglin’s own slightly fairer skin was no better. There was a tremor in his hands as he ran his hands down Faeglyn’s body, trying to find an injury, find anything, panic rising in his throat as he tried to determine  _ why his son was cold. _

“I'm afraid checking for a mark of death will do no one any good,” a voice rumbled, and Maeglin froze before slowly turning up his gaze to the towering…

Valar. That was a Valar, and Maeglin was in the presence of him. The  _ last _ time he had been in the presence of a Valar it had not gone so well for him. Hands tightened on his son’s shoulders, and he drew him to his chest, palm on the back of his head as he clutched him tightly.

“Are you…” Maeglin trailed off, and the Valar slowly tilted his head.

“Mandos,” he said, and Maeglin tried to focus, tried to take in the sight of him. Not handsome, not as Melkor had been, but ethereal all the same, in a way that spoke of time never passing, of inevitability and crushing finality, of a promise that suffering would cease as it was meant to: with the peace of a quiet end.

He remembered, now. His son’s tiny, tiny body, broken in his hands, all he had left. The swords that pierced his flesh as he tried to defend the cooling body, the arrows that fell, one after another, in cruel succession, the way that none came to his aid even as he begged them to at least take his son, who had done no wrong, leave him to his fate, but take his child, and…

The People did not show their pain, not outwardly, but the crush of failure, the memory of angry eyes that trapped him in place and  _ demanded  _ he be better for Faeglyn’s sake as Fuinetari, who was only ever a means to an end, lay dying on the parapet.

_ “If you would doom my son to such a cursed existence, you will teach him to bear it with dignity.” _

Three. Faeglyn was three years old. The youngest of Fingolfin’s line yet to perish for the sins of his forebears.

Failure had never tasted so bitter.

“Ada,” Faeglyn murmured from where Maeglin was suffocating him against his chest. “Ada, súya, me’in. ”

He still couldn't say please correctly, and Maeglin's heart shattered into a million pieces as he slowly relinquished his hold, enough that Faeglyn could pull back and take a breath as he had so politely requested. Slowly, Mandos came to one knee, tilting his head in curiosity at the sight before him, and Maeglin swallowed back the passionate grief swelling in his lungs.

“Rarely do I see such a little one,” Mandos said, and did not reach for Faeglyn, who was staring at him fearlessly, all curiosity at a new person, none of the knife-shy grief that Maeglin had known at such a tender age. “You have not done much to earn a second life, Maeglin, son of Eöl, and I fear his next will be just as cruel.”

“Please,” Maeglin whispered, because even if it was cruel, at least Faeglyn would have had a  _ chance. _ “Send him to the Ents, they know nothing of hatred, to the dwarves, I have done nothing to harm them, even to the men or the---”

“Peace, my child,” Mandos rumbled as he fully sat on the ground. “You are but a little one yourself. Far too young for such a responsibility, but you have taken it in a fit of arrogance nonetheless.”

He took the gentle chastisement with as much grace as he could bear, and Mandos hummed as he tilted his head.

“I do this kindness for him, not for you. But I will not be cruel,” he decided, and something burning and bright exploded in Maeglin’s chest as he gasped for air. “To survive, you will need to be far stronger than you are, far smarter, far wiser. You will bear it, and bear it well. Three gifts, I will give, because once you leave, you cannot come back to our world. The first will be the reincarnation of your forebears. You will pass when you choose, once you have lived a life you determine to be within your means.”

The burning faded, but it was only a brief respite before something took fire in his throat.

“The gift of tongues, because the languages you will see will be vast and infinite and not all will be ones you can replicate, but all you will be able to understand,” Mandos continued, and Maeglin shuddered, clutching his son to him as he tried to breathe through the pain that was overtaking him, and Mandos slowly tilted his head.

“The final gift is the gift of your father’s blade, Anguirel, which you will never lose,” Mandos decided. “Even when it is misplaced, you can call it back to your side. It will withstand all this new world can throw at you, and this world can do quite some damage. As for your son…”

His timeless eyes, made of the void of an end that would come to all, turned on Faeglyn, who stared back at him in silence.

“The blade you forged when he was in his mother’s womb,” Mandos declared. “Ruistfa, the sword that will always tell him where comfort is to be found. A choice, no doubt born from your own struggles with the blade of your father. It will always lead him to comfort, as you had intended, and it will always return to him, because there is no greater comfort than a sword that never leaves your side. A blessing of lives, like your own, and a third gift, to ease his survival… The ability to hide from all senses and pass unseen. A wonderful gift, no?”

Maeglin’s eyes drifted back to the child he had raised for three years, and something akin to horror twisted in his gut as he realized the full gravity of the situation. A… toddler… able to disappear at will.

It would not do to reject a gift of a particularly pernicious Valar, but he sorely wanted to.

“Now…” Mandos stood, towering over them towards the ceiling, seeming to go on forever and ever. “I believe the two of you have a life to get to. When you are tired, and have lived your lives, remember that there is more where you are. You cannot come back once I have sent you, but you can move forward. Farewell, Maeglin, son of Eöl, and Faeglyn, son of Fuinetari. May faith guide you, when all else is gone. And look for friends in unlikely places. I have the strangest feeling someone will be joining you.”

There was no great shift, no sense of cataclysmic power disrupting the world around them. It was as gentle as waking up on a rocking shift drifting down a lazy river. One moment, the stars were above their head, twinkling and shining, and the next, Maeglin was sitting in a field of grass, clad once again in his black garb and pauldron and chestplate strapped to his torso, Anguirel slung over one shoulder, and Ruistfa, which he had thought lost for three years now, slung over the other. Faeglyn was dressed in a blinding yellow shirt and soft black pants, seated comfortably on his lap, and Maeglin slowly tilted back his head to take in the sight of heavens he did not know stretched out in an endless sprawl above them.

“Well, you certainly aren’t from around here,” an amused voice said, and Maeglin’s head snapped back down to look at the interloper with wide, wide eyes, the language he had never heard before in his life processing in a moment. The feeling of understanding was uncomfortable, to put it lightly, and Faeglyn perked up at the sight of the Man, standing there in strange robes and armor, a curious tilt to his head as he stared down at the two of them. “Fay said someone would be coming, but she didn’t say I would be meeting another member of her species.”

“I’m sorry?” Maeglin asked, blinking slowly as his son wriggled in his lap, already attempting to get up to investigate the new person, and Maeglin’s hands tightened on Faeglyn’s waist to get him to stay put.

“Fay. She said you would be coming,” the Man said and took off the helmet framing his face, betraying high cheekbones and slanted eyes, his… his fëa humming oddly in the air around him. Like he was a Man, but not  _ quite. _ Maeglin blinked again, and the man stared down at him in measured silence for a long, long moment. “She didn’t give me your name.”

“And you did not give me yours,” Maeglin countered, because names were tricky things, endless in their power and potential, and Mandos had said there may be another, bur Fay was not much of a People name. Whoever it was, they had cast their old name aside.

…. He would, but Maeglin was… Well. He hadn’t brought honor to it, not yet. It was far too soon to cast it aside.

  
“My apologies,” the Man said easily, tucked the helmet under his arm, swept flyaways from a high bun out of his eyes. “Jedi Lord Tarre Vizsla. And you’re two klicks away from a pirate raid I  _ really _ need to get to before they strike. How does your  _ ad’ika _ handle speeders?”


	2. Chapter 2

A speeder, apparently, was an extremely loud contraption that hovered above the ground due to some unseen art. And Maeglin did not care for it. He loved horses, of course. Adored horses, actually, but this  _ thing, _ this horse-less, floating cart the apparent Lord had coaxed him into, was  _ not _ living or breathing or had any form of intelligence, and he did not trust it.

Faeglyn, however, seemed fine. Maeglin was not sure what grace had been bestowed upon him to have such an easy child, but Faeglyn was a quiet, well behaved little saproling, though he rarely spoke, had lived the whole of his three years in a state of extreme upheaval, always attached to Maeglin at the hip. Temper fits were few and far in between with Faeglyn, and could almost always be resolved with food, water, and sleep. He tended to cling, especially amongst strangers, but he was also a curious thing, and this…  _ speeder, _ was a curiosity indeed.

“Master Fay informed me you don't have these on your home planet, prefer living creatures for transportation,” Lord Vizsla said, and Maeglin zeroed back in on him as he flipped some switches to start a high pitched noise from the bowels of the thing. The entire cart  _ vibrated, _ and Lord Vizsla took the… reins? Wheel? Tiller? “She  _ also _ said you hadn't come down in a ship. Did you take a ride on a purrgil or something? She said your kind tends to bond well with semi-sentients.”

“... I'm not familiar with this 'purrgil' you speak of,” Maeglin said slowly as Faeglyn firmly sat in his lap, fingers hooked in the strap on his vambrace like they always were.

“Space whales. Vacuumbreathers,” Lord Vizsla said and cast him a curious glance. “Maybe an Oswath then?”

Maeglin said nothing, and Lord Vizsla laughed, a clear and bright sound that made Maeglin feel a little light headed. He was not an unhandsome Man, even if the power pouring from his fëa was confusing Maeglin for a variety of reasons. It felt like an elf, firmly like grace, entrenched in some kind of power that was so blindingly Light it  _ felt _ like home, except there was a twist there, like trying a new fruit that  _ almost  _ looked and tasted like something he was familiar with.

“Alright, then. Keep your secrets. May I have yours and the  _ ad’ika’s _ name so I'm not calling you two ‘you’?” He asked, and Maeglin blinked.

“Maeglin. And he is my son, Faeglyn.”

"I gathered as much," Lord Vizsla said as he eased on the lever and then the cart  _ jolted _ into motion, making Maeglin's heart leap into his throat as he clutched Faeglyn a little more tightly. "He looks just like you."

“Most of the People look similar,” Maeglin replied as Faeglyn reached out a curious hand to a blinking light, and Lord Vizsla gently pushed it down.

“I’m going to park a little ways around and jet the rest of the way over. I’ll come back for you when I’m done,” he said and gave another glance to Faeglyn. “Bit too young for getting involved in that sort of thing, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Maeglin said, and something twisted uncomfortably in his gut at the memory of his death. Maeglin had  _ tried. _ He really had, and Faeglyn seemed so very unperturbed about the whole development of being dead and being alive again, but he was so quiet. So soft. His life had been constant upheaval since he was born, and this was nothing but a normal Tuesday for him.

He deserved so much better. It wasn’t  _ supposed _ to be like this. Maeglin had held out against Melkor for so long, but the promises… The promise of better was… Well, when Fuinetari had announced her pregnancy, it had seemed so very  _ easy. _ Promising. He had hope, even if he knew there was a battle to be had. The battle was supposed to be  _ after _ the birth, so Maeglin could hide the newborn babe away, but everything had gone so wrong, and he had fought his  _ wife, _ the elleth who was only ever a means to an end, fiercely loyal to her city, a proud Captain of the Guard, still so entrenched in her duty even as her water broke on the parapet of the city.

She wasn’t supposed to die. He had not loved her as he loved Idril, but Fuinetari was never meant to die. Not if he could have both, and he had been promised both, and instead… Instead.

Anguirel was heavy on his back as he gripped the edge of the wall of the ‘speeder’, and Lord Vizsla glanced over at him.

“We’re about five minutes out,” he said, and Maeglin nodded numbly, his fingers curling in Faeglyn’s tunic, feeling how warm his little body was, how it was  _ supposed _ to be. “You look like you just came out of a war.”

“War is…” A constant. Maeglin pulled Faeglyn a little tighter against his chest, and Faeglyn tilted his head back to look at him with massive, questioning eyes.

_ “Ada, maita _ _ ,”  _ he said, his fingers pulling lightly at the strap of Maeglin’s vambrace, and Maeglin bit his lower lip.

_ “Rato, hondo-ninya _ _ ,” _ he promised, making a mental note to figure out what kind of food they could  _ eat _ and see if this Fay elleth was someone who would be more likely to kill him on sight or not.

Why had he just gotten into a cart…  _ speeder, _ with a complete stranger? He felt dazed, unsettled, vaguely like he didn’t fit in his own body, and there was discomfort rising in his chest at the rapid changes. Mandos had said to expect someone, but here he was, with a Man, heading towards a  _ fight _ and  _ pirates, _ like this was some sort of casual affair, a man retrieving someone for a friend, and Maeglin wasn’t sure if he should let on that he had no idea who Fay was, or why she knew to send for him.

“Master Fay never speaks of her home planet,” Lord Vizsla said, casually, and Maeglin blinked.

“She wouldn’t,” he said after a pause, because that would likely be complicated to explain. “Our home is a place of contradiction and secrets.”

“Is that so?” Lord Vizsla asked, and Maeglin twitched as Faeglyn started to squirm. This speeder was going  _ very _ fast, and he had no way to secure Faeglyn except his own hands.

“It is,” Maeglin said. “Has she been expecting me long?”

“Master Fay is always expecting something, and rarely informs anyone of when that expectation starts,” Lord Vizsla said wryly. “Mystery of a woman, that one.”

“Elleth,” Maeglin corrected before he could stop himself, and Lord Vizsla tilted his head.

“Pardon?” He asked, and Maeglin forced himself to focus, pay attention to the Man next to him.

“The females of our race are called elleth. Not women,” he explained, and Lord Vizsla grinned, his teeth blindingly bright, and Maeglin’s brain drifted in the face of it. He had kind eyes, Maeglin realized, soft and brown and deep, honey warm, with an innocent roguishness that Maeglin had never realized was something he liked.

“One hundred years since I’ve met Fay and that is the first thing I have ever heard about your culture,” Lord Vizsla said, and Mandos had said his fëa would behave differently here, but the swimming not-his feeling of intrigue and glee was not something Maeglin wanted to experience. There was some kind of pressing  _ awareness, _ an understanding of  _ life, _ a connection he couldn’t quite touch, but it was there, buzzing and soft and warm, tinted with conflict and darkness, and it wasn’t entirely unlike his attachment to Arda, but it was so much  _ different. _ Larger. Vast.

“We are a private people,” Maeglin said, which wasn’t strictly  _ true. _ They were private right up until it was time to make their problems everyone  _ else’s _ problem. Damned Feanorians and their shiny rocks.

Though Maeglin hadn’t been fully in a position to judge for quite some time. He did burn a city to the ground, for reasons that he now didn’t  _ exactly _ view as the best. The torture and fear hadn’t really  _ helped, _ but he had made his own choices, and now his son had to be resurrected, with no tie to his culture and home except through Maeglin, a pariah and traitor.

“And are you all Force sensitive? You’re as overwhelming as Fay, I think,” Lord Vizsla asked, and Maeglin blinked at the unfamiliar term before defaulting to his general setting: evading the question.

“That would be telling,” he said, and Lord Vizsla grinned as Maeglin’s awareness hummed, almost  _ screamed _ in warning as he lifted his head.

There was a figure in white robes standing on a ridge, the wind kicking them up and sending them spiraling around her, and Maeglin blinked at the tanned skin and stark white hair he knew  _ very _ well from his mother’s accursed relatives. Trepidation rose, and he visibly recoiled as she drew nearer, her presence overwhelming and crushing, registering as warmth and light, so much light, sunlight dappling leaves, whispered secrets and iron clad control, endless knowledge and infinite experience, so much more than 193 year old Maeglin had.

Faeglyn was perking up, drawing back, knowing to fear his kin, and Maeglin’s heart dropped like a stone as his son pressed back into his chest, got a death grip on his strap, and his eyes zeroed in on the possible threat. That… couldn’t be.

The speeder coasted to a halt, and Maeglin didn’t move, his hand itching to reach for the sword slung over his shoulder at the sight before him.

“The last time I saw you, you were eight feet tall, Lady Galadriel,” he said, disparaging words slipping out of him like a second skin, and the lady slowly tilted her head, looking him up and down before her eyes landed on the child in his lap.

“The last time I heard from you, you were six months away from committing multiple war crimes and killing your kin,” she replied, the rough and ugly language Maeglin hated that he understood falling off her lips with unfair grace. “I see at least  _ someone _ survived.”

“Clearly, he did not, if we’re  _ here, _ cousin,” Maeglin spat, and Lord Vizsla paused, reaching for a metal cylinder at his hip.

_ “Lady?” _ He echoed, looking between the two of them with hard suspicion.

“Not any longer,” Galadriel, that was most  _ certainly _ his mother’s cousin, said harshly. “Have you come to burn more cities, Maeglin, son of Eöl?”

“I went a good  _ three years _ without burning cities, and I---”

_ “Burning cities?” _ Lord Vizsla echoed, and Galadriel shot him a sharp look.

“This is a family matter, kindly save your questions, Tarre,” she said and then her eyes flitted to Faeglyn. “Mandos did not inform me that it would be  _ you. _ ”

“It is not in the nature of most Valar to unjustly punish children for the crimes of their sires,” Maeglin snarled as his eyes flicked over the rolling fields, wondering how to disentangle himself from this situation. Galadriel was  _ dangerous. _ The elleth didn’t need a sword to do damage. She could torment and torture from just a look, and Faeglyn couldn’t afford to have a father that was out of commission from a vengeful cousin.

“Did you truly just have me pick up your cousin so you could pick a fight with him the second you set eyes on him?” Lord Vizsla asked, and both elves paused to look over at him.

“He’s once removed,” Galadriel said icily. “And I am not ‘picking a fight’. I do not fight  _ children. _ He’s scarcely one hundred and ninety. That’s scarcely more than what you would consider a teenager.”

“I am fully mature and grown by all standards,” Maeglin replied, affronted, and Galadriel turned a steely gaze back on him.

“Do not speak to  _ me _ of fully grown,” she spat out. “I am over seven thousand years old, what would you know of  _ mature? _ ”

“See, this is why Mother didn’t go back to Gondolin until Father became  _ insufferable--- _ ”

“My cousin didn’t return to Gondolin because your  _ father _ was holding her hostage and using  _ you _ as leverage, and  _ you _ desecrated the very ground where  _ he _ killed her---”

“War was coming regardless of how they felt about it, and my father had his reasons, he had a point about the line of Finwe, just  _ look _ at the Silmarils---”

“The problems of Feanor’s children were  _ not _ the problems of Fingolfin’s, and if Eöl had such  _ opinions _ about it, he shouldn’t have married into the line---”

“The  _ problems _ of Feanor’s children were made  _ everyone’s _ problems, whether they liked it or  _ not, _ and Father had a point about isolationism after the mess of Alqualonde---”

“And then  _ you _ threw your lot in with the very Valar that escalated the situation---”

“Everyone escalated the situation, it was  _ not _ solely Morgoth, they  _ banned _ the Feanorians from Valinor---”

“You are of the line of  _ Fingolfin, _ you had nothing to do with it---”

“I didn’t have much of a choice, considering I was  _ kidnapped _ and  _ tormented _ and  _ no one came for me--- _ ”

“Well, perhaps someone might have  _ cared _ to come for you had you not alienated all of your kin and tried to  _ marry--- _ ”

“Do  _ not _ bring up Idril, I got  _ married _ properly with an Avari---”

“And then you angered her so much she attempted to  _ kill _ you on the walls of Gondolin and the  _ only _ saving grace was the birth of your son to break the cur---”

“I was  _ not _ cursed, just because I  _ almost _ fell off doesn’t mean my father’s words had  _ any _ merit---”

“Is this why you don’t talk about your home world?” Lord Vizsla cut in, and both of the elves abruptly cut themselves off to stare at him. “My apologies for interrupting, but I have to go deal with a pirate incursion, and while this is  _ fascinating, _ even with no context, clearly your people have more inter conflicts than Hutts, and I say this as a Mandalorian. Fay. You said you were going to provide medic support. Can the family reunion be put on hold until we get this done, or will I be leaving you here?”

“I think,” Galadriel said icily, “Maeglin and I need to have a talk.”

“I do not believe we require a talk,” Maeglin said, a little desperately, because he had a Valar in his head once, and he would rather not have kin in it. Galadriel was a mistress of the mind, knowing the ins and outs intimately, and he was in an unfamiliar land, with a child he had to  _ protect. _ He already had learned that kin would not.

“Ada,” Faeglyn said insistently, tugging at his vambrace, and Maeglin hushed him. Galadriel looked down at the babe in his lap, her face unreadable, but the sharp tinge of rage in the air flickered like lightning on the horizon, and Maeglin wrapped his arm around Faeglyn’s middle protectively, the sprawl of his hand on his stomach not safe  _ enough. _ “Ada, matso?”

Galadriel let out a long, low breath, and Maeglin stiffened up before she turned to Lord Vizsla.

“The little one needs food, and Maeglin has no supplies,” she said, cold lurking in her tone, and he briefly realized she must have had children. Of course she did. “I will stay here to ensure he eats.”

“If you’re sure,” Lord Vizsla said dubiously, but he climbed out of the speeder all the same. “I’ll be back shortly to retrieve you for medic detail.”

“May the Force be with you,” Galadriel intoned, and Lord Vizsla inclined his head.

“May the Force be with you,” he repeated, and tapped at his vambrace. There was a beep, and the contraption on his back suddenly  _ erupted _ with flame, sending Maeglin jerking back at the roar. Lord Vizsla didn’t seem to notice the sharp spike of concern, instead lifting  _ into the air, _ the flames pushing him up and carrying him away.

A long pause stretched between the three elves as Faeglyn tugged on Maeglin’s strap again. Slowly, cautiously, he picked Faeglyn up and climbed out of the speeder, balancing the little one on his hip as he stood across from Galadriel. The knife that had once been kept at the small of his back was gone, and he was itching to reach for it. No bows, no arrows, nothing he could use but a weighty two-handed sword. He couldn’t in good conscience touch the blade he had made for Faeglyn.

Galadriel looked him up and down before she let out a tiny noise of frustration.

“When Mandos said there was an elf that died too young and would need help with his child, I didn’t think he meant  _ you, _ ” she said derisively, but she was reaching for the pouch at her hip to pull out a fruit. There was a pause as Maeglin eyed the soft, golden fruit, and she tilted her head, waiting for permission.

Begrudgingly, he nodded, and she offered the fruit to Faeglyn. The little one looked up at Maeglin with wide, questioning eyes, and he gave him a short nod. Carefully, Faeglyn reached for the fruit and took it with one tiny hand, pulling it to his chest protectively, and Maeglin shifted him so he sat higher on his hip.

“How long have you been here?” He asked, and Galadriel slipped past him, deliberately ignoring Faeglyn, and that was a kindness he had not expected as she reached into the speeder to pull some strange metal contraption wrapped in a leather holster.

“You’ll need this,” she said shortly. “A few hundred years. Not long. I knew you would be here, on Concord Dawn, at this time, and I knew there would be a child, but nothing else.”

Maeglin studied the contraption before holding out a hand, and she placed it in his open palm. It was heavy. He wanted to cling to Faeglyn, but…

Carefully, he set him on the ground and turned it over his hands.

“What is it?” He asked, and Galadriel gestured for him to pull it out.

“This galaxy’s equivalent to a bow and arrow,” she replied. “They call it a blaster. I carry no weapons, but this is a violent galaxy.”

“Galaxy,” he repeated, and her lips twisted in a wry smile as Faeglyn clung to Maeglin’s leggings with one hand as he used the other to bite into the fruit.

“We travel the stars here,” she explained, and Maeglin focused on Faeglyn’s warm weight against him. “More space to wage war.”

Maeglin swallowed and refused to look down at Faeglyn, still letting him lean against his leg, focusing on his presence.

“More space to avoid it, then,” he said, because he had not been raised in war, but he had waged it, and he wouldn’t allow that to happen to his son. A higher purpose was for dreamers and warmongers, and Maeglin was through with higher purposes and grandeur. His son would be happy and safe and…

Mandos had sent him with the tools of war, and Valar very often knew things that elves did not. He couldn’t think about that. He had to  _ try. _ For Faeglyn. He couldn’t continue the curse of his line, the curse of his existence. It had to end, and it would not be on Faeglyn to end it. It was Maeglin’s duty, not his.

“It would be wise to not involve yourself, yes,” Galadriel said passively. “My duty was to teach you how to survive, and there are some things you must know. Sit.”

With grace he had only seen in the eldest of his kind, she knelt to the ground and spread out her robes. Slowly, Maeglin sat, and Faeglyn leaned against him, juices all over his chin, and Maeglin didn’t even think about it as he lifted his tunic to wipe at his face. Galadriel’s eyes flicked over the two of them, and Maeglin bristled.

“What?”

“Do you not have a handkerchief?” She asked, and Maeglin bit back a retort.

“It was used to clean blood from my blade, and there was nothing to wash it in.” He wasn’t a  _ savage. _ He just had limited resources.

“Hm,” she said, and Maeglin glared at her.

“What of this universe do I need to know?” He wasn’t about to be judged for his parenting techniques. Of course, those parenting techniques had been an  _ abysmal _ failure, but he could judge his own self.

With a sigh, Galadriel smoothed out the white robes, and then she launched into the explanation.

It was a lot to take in. An endless war with people called Sith and Jedi, constant galactic upheaval, a mysterious entity called the Force that resided in all species, billions of species, the foundation of Jedi Lords, which Tarre Vizsla was, Galadriel taking the name Fay and pledging herself to the Jedi Order to fight for the Light while she waited for Maeglin to show up with Faeglyn, the ability to travel the expanse of something called  _ space _ with things called starships, and then she told Maeglin all that he had missed in Arda since his death. The elves left for Valinor, and men inherited the earth, Morgoth was imprisoned, and his second, Annatar, had become the primary threat. The rings of power, the way the Silmarils were lost, Annatar’s quest to revive Melkor, culminating in Men standing against Annatar in one final battle to save two halflings to destroy the One Ring of Power,  _ Sauruman, _ of all the Maia, falling to Annatar’s seduction, and Maeglin’s head was buzzing with all of the information.

_ Annatar _ was the ultimate evil?  _ Annatar? _ Maeglin had done  _ indecent _ things with Annatar once Melkor released him, before Fuinetari, and---

“Annatar?” He repeated again, his head still spinning in circles as he tried to take in this information. He knew what Annatar sounded like when his ecstasy peaked, what did Galadriel  _ mean, _ he had nearly succeeded taking over Arda on multiple occasions?

“Yes, Annatar, though we began to call him Sauron after a certain point,” Galadriel said, and Maeglin mouthed the name Sauron.

“Are you  _ certain _ that it was him?” Annatar had been powerful, yes, and seductive, his entire purpose in serving Melkor had been to seduce people to his side, but Annatar doing all of  _ that? _

“Quite certain, yes,” Galadriel said dryly, and Maeglin stared at the ground, wondering if his taste would improve in this lifetime. “Are you truly more shocked at his inheritance of Melkor’s rule than being in another universe where they can travel to other realms with a flick of a button?”

_ “Yes,” _ Maeglin hissed, because he was  _ not _ going to be admitting to his indiscretion to his mother’s cousin, but  _ Annatar? _

“... Maeglin,” Galadriel said in that extremely disappointed voice he had heard from his mother on a number of occasions, and Maeglin focused his attention back on Faeglyn, wiping his chin and taking the pit of the fruit away before he could attempt to take a bite out of it.

“There are a great many things to find disappointing about me, Lady Galadriel, and I would beg you to keep the things you  _ personally _ find disappointing to the most relevant items,” he said stiffly. “It will undoubtedly make things easier for everyone involved.”

Galadriel’s lips twitched ever so slightly, and he wasn’t sure if that was a grimace of a hint of a smile, but it was certainly something. There was a flicker of emotion that wasn’t his own, amusement he severely disliked, and she tilted her head.

“If that makes you more comfortable,” she said smoothly, and Faeglyn burrowed in against Maeglin’s side, pressing his head against the line of his ribs. Maeglin pushed his hair back and down, making a mental note to redo his braid. It was looking a little untidy, and he wasn’t old enough to be leaving it loose. Far too many things to get it caught in.

“He’s a quiet one, isn’t he?” Galadriel asked, and Maeglin’s eyes softened.

“When it suits him,” he replied, because Faeglyn  _ could _ chatter, but he preferred not to. Maeglin had no idea what a child’s milestones were for their healthy development, but he had a sinking suspicion that Faeglyn was behind, likely due to only being around Maeglin and constantly running for his life from elves and the servants of Melkor alike. If he was raised in the normal manner of an elven child, perhaps…

It was too late to dwell on that. Hopefully, being here would change things.

A sound caught the edge of his awareness, and Maeglin tilted his head as he froze at the shuddering whine of some kind of engine similar to the speeder he had been in. Muscles coiled, and he caught the edge of some kind of blast, a whine, and Galadriel reached forward to pat the holster in his lap.

“Allow me to show you how this operates,” she said, and he turned his attention back to her. Whatever was going on, it was far away enough that he likely didn’t have to worry about it just yet.

Galadriel coaxed Maeglin up, and he pulled the ‘blaster’ out of the holster, weighing it in his hand. Made of metal, with a long, protruding piece and a curved hilt for his hand.

“This is technically Tarre’s, but he hasn’t touched it in four months, and has probably forgotten it was there,” Galadriel said dryly. “He’s been insufferable since he made his saber.”

“I didn’t see him holding a sword?” Maeglin asked in confusion, and Galadriel hummed.

“They’re called lightsabers or  _ jetii’kad, _ depending on who you speak to. The metal cylinder clipped to his belt. It holds… well, they call it plasma, but the most direct word we would know is lava, in a suspended state. It can repel the bolts that come from blasters and cut through things and remain in position,” she explained. “I believe elvish blades can hold up against them. Anguirel certainly can. Your father, for all his faults,  _ was _ one of our best smiths.”

“If only he had held back on giving him so many opinions,” Maeglin muttered as he inspected the blaster. “How does this work?”

“This piece here is the trigger, like a string. You point the long hand at a target, and squeeze the trigger, and it lets off a blast of ‘plasma’. This switch here is called a ‘safety’, because the trigger only needs the slightest of pressures to go off, so this keeps it from firing when it is pointed down. Flick it up and it will be ready to fire.”

Maeglin turned the blaster over in his hand and flicked the ‘switch’ up before holding up the blaster, feeling the heft of it and squinting. It was very much  _ not _ like a bow, but he could point it, and…

His finger wrapped around the trigger, and he squeezed it. There was a jerk, and it recoiled as the shot blasted off down the valley they had found themselves in. The blaster bucked back, and he blinked in shock at the loud noise that had come from it.

“Hot,” he murmured and held it up again, squeezing the trigger again to let off another blast, now that he had felt the recoil. “I think I understand.”

“They’re simple, easy to use, with very little skill needed to operate them,” Galadriel said disparagingly. “But they are what they use. Not like needing to hone your skills with a bow.”

“I don’t believe you ever used a bow in your life,” Maeglin said dryly, and then paused, wondering if he was  _ allowed _ to speak so informally with how tenuous his position was, but Galadriel didn’t even blink.

“I used a weapon or two in my time, but I was a cultural leader, not a military leader. Now I do not touch them.”

“Why not?”

Galadriel’s eyes seemed endless as she stared at the sun hung in the sky, the dry grass and taste of rain on the horizon.

“There are a lot of powers here, in this galaxy,” she said softly, “but in the end, whether Light or Dark, or somewhere in the middle, violence will always be done for the sake of violence. I suppose I’m just too old to play at justifications.”

“You are a Jedi, are you not?” Maeglin asked, because it certainly sounded like Jedi were soldiers.

“I am,” she said simply, “but to be a Jedi here is to fight for a better future, and I suppose I spent too long as a Lady to not continue to make my own determinations of the rules.”

Her eyes flicked to the two handed blade over his shoulder, and her face twitched in displeasure.

“Take care, with that blade. It was easy enough to Fall in Arda, but here the temptation is that much more infinite,” she warned. “Mandos granted you a second chance, but the curse of a father does not fade so easily.”

“I did not come here to wage war,” Maeglin said sharply, and the slightest hint of a frown touched her lips. “I came here to raise my son.”

“And what will you say to your son, when he asks why you do not fight for what is right when you could?” Galadriel demanded, and Maeglin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, there was a  _ much _ closer whine of a speeder… Oh, that must be what they called a  _ starship. _

It was floating in the air, hurtling towards them, smoke billowing from one side, and Maeglin turned on instinct to grab his son and run, but he was---

_ Gone. _

Maeglin’s heart  _ leapt _ in his chest, and he spun on his heel, eyes wide as the ship hurtled towards them.

“Faeglyn!” He shouted, and Galadriel grabbed at him, shoving him behind her as she shoved out a hand. Maeglin sprawled in the grass, frantically thrashing around for his  _ missing son, _ and there was a sudden  _ dip _ in his awareness, forcing him to snap his attention back to Galadriel as she did…  _ something. _

One hand was outstretched, and the ship had halted in the air, seemingly frozen. It was shaking, straining, and he felt something similar to  _ exertion _ pouring off of Galadriel. She was doing that.

“Is this  _ normal? _ ” She hissed, and Maeglin snapped his head back to open plains, Faeglyn nowhere in sight.

“A  _ gift _ from Mandos,” he growled, because Valar could  _ not _ stop ruining his life. “He’s  _ here, _ but he---”

“He has completely  _ vanished _ to me,” Galadriel said, and Maeglin skittered forward to cast through the grass. Toddlers could get far, fast, and Faeglyn was normally attached to his  _ hip. _ He wouldn’t go far, right?

“Faeglyn!” Maeglin called. “Faeglyn, come to me, please!”

Nothing. Not a single sound. With a newfound desperation, he fell into Faeglyn’s other name, just to see if he would respond.

_ “Tatorne!” _

Nothing. Faeglyn was nowhere to be found, and there was a hiss behind him. A sudden feeling of  _ malice _ overtook him, malice he had felt before, and for a moment, panic flared until he realized that though the malice was there, it was not even a tenth of the power he had known, and perhaps it was for the best that Faeglyn, for all intents and purposes, was  _ not here _ right now.

“Master Fay!” A jovial voice called, and a figure dropped nearly fifty feet to the ground. “What a surprise!”

“Darth Ventra,” Galadriel grit out at the Woman in all black striding towards them, her arms trembling with the exertion of using whatever that force was to hold the ship back.

“Did you find a friend?” The pale Woman with jet black hair asked, unclipping a metal cylinder from her belt, and Galadriel and Maeglin exchanged glances. They didn’t know where Faeglyn was. If the ship crashed, he could get caught in it. “Oh, what’s this?”

The Woman pulled up short, and Maeglin slowly circled around Galadriel, the blaster discarded because he vaguely knew how to use it, but now was not the time to get comfortable when he had a sword.

“I was beginning to think you just sprang from the earth,” she said, and Maeglin wondered just what kind of Man they had here that produced such blazing yellow eyes. “So you  _ do _ belong somewhere. Is this your brother?”

“Cousin,” Galadriel corrected lightly, but her voice was tight.

“Once removed,” Maeglin added, because he couldn’t help himself, and she laughed.

“You’re holding my ship up, Master Fay. Step aside,  _ cousin. _ ”

Galadriel  _ needed _ to hold that ship up, because from the concern on her face, it might be crashing. Maeglin paused, hating that he had to do this so soon, hating that he had  _ just _ said he  _ wouldn’t, _ but this was his  _ son, _ who had chosen the  _ worst _ time to practice his newfound Valar gift.

“He won’t be doing that,” Galadriel bit out, and Maeglin let out a low breath. The ship was creaking in the air, and they didn’t have much time. Faeglyn knew better than to show himself when his father was fighting. He had learned, and…

And he had died anyways.

They had been here  _ maybe _ one hour, if Maeglin was being generous, and just because Mandos had given them infinite lives didn’t mean they should be  _ using _ them frivolously. He had  _ no _ idea what dying over and over could do to the mind of his child, and he wasn’t about to find out.

With a hiss, he reached over his shoulder to wrap his hand around Anguirel, who seemed to  _ leap _ into his grip, a joyful song echoing across the clearing as he drew the blade with a ring. The blade glinted in the sun, and he spun it around in one hand, gripping it with two hands as he leveled it on the woman.

_ Elves _ might be able to kill each other as they pleased, but this Woman seemed to want to get her teeth in Galadriel’s throat, and he would rather she  _ didn’t. _ He had learned his lesson from letting  _ others _ kill the fair folk. This was all about not making the  _ same _ choices.

Not mistakes.

Never mistakes.

He knew what he was doing.

“My lady,” he hissed, “can you step back?”

“Carefully,” Galadriel replied, and took one slow step, almost staggering under the weight, and Maeglin leveled his sword at the woman.

“Beskar?” She asked, and he vaguely recalled the word from Galadriel’s explanation. The metal of the Mandalorians, which Lord Vizsla was.

“Tornanga,” he replied, because technically it  _ was. _ At least, that was the Queyna word for steel. Her brows drew together in confusion, and then she lifted the cylinder threateningly.

“It will slice all the same,” she said, and pressed on the red ‘button’.

It was a shock, seeing blazing red extend out with a strange,  _ unnatural _ hiss, and Anguirel trembled in his grip at the mournful cry that seemed to emanate from the hilt. Anguirel had been made to  _ live, _ to find unabashed  _ glee _ in combat, but in the past three years, no, perhaps since Melkor, had sobered in a strange way, enough that it reacted to things with more than just pure bloodthirsty killing intent. And the sword pointed at him, so spitting with rage and pain, was not something Anguirel  _ liked. _

It was bleeding, Maeglin realized, and Galadriel hadn’t mentioned  _ that. _ It was bleeding, and it was in pain, and his mind drifted back to his own blood splattering stones, dripping from his lips, warmed shackles on his wrists, and something twisted in his gut.

No.

No, he didn’t like that very much.

The strange awareness in the back of his mind twinged, like a single note played on a harp, and Maeglin was suddenly  _ in the air, _ soaring towards the Sith, that was what Galadriel had called it, a strange pressure around his middle, force propelling him forward, and for a brief moment, he panicked before he realized that panicking was pointless.

The blazing heat of the blood red blade swung towards him, aiming for spearing him through the stomach, and he swung Anguirel down, knocking it aside with a twist of his blade. Shocked that Anguirel had not burned through, the Woman dropped him, and Maeglin hit the ground in a roll. The grass gave way, and he came to his feet, spinning on his toes to send a blow up at her.

The Woman sprang back just in time, and Maeglin didn’t give her a moment to breathe, powering forward with pure desperation. Their blades clashed, and her black robes swirled around her heels as she backed up under his powerful slashes. His eyes narrowed with single minded focus, and he pushed her back, watching for a misstep. The blazing red blade descended on him, and he blocked it, his eyes locked on that hilt as he tried to work how unarming such a weapon would work.

Her blade caught, hot and far too close to his hands for comfort, and he stepped in, his fingers wrapping around the edge of Anguirel for leverage. With a twist, the diamond pommel snapped up, smashing into her temple as he slid his foot between her legs so he could twist. The blade abruptly extinguished as the hilt went flying, and he slammed his shoulder into her chest to make some distance. The Woman staggered back with a gasp of air, her hand already reaching out to call the hilt to her hand, and that was going to be annoying. With a hiss, Maeglin slashed forward, and in a show of acrobatics, she bent back to dodge the singing blade, the edge passing just over her nose as the saber leapt to life.

Maeglin overstepped, expecting contact, and regained his balance with elven grace, spinning his blade around to collide with the saber aimed for his throat. For one heart stopping moment, their eyes locked, and he could  _ see _ some unfamiliar malice swimming there. A hiss escaped his lips, and he jerked, bringing his elbow up to collide with the same temple, and she stumbled back, the lock broken as he leveled the sword on her.

“You’re outclassed,” he said simply, because she  _ was, _ and she snarled at him, leveling the weeping blade at him.

“You haven’t even  _ touched _ the Force, Jedi,” she snarled, and his brows furrowed.

“How dare you,” he said archly. “Do I  _ look _ like a warrior of the Light? You were about to try to kill my  _ cousin. _ That’s my only fight here.”

“The great Jedi Master Fay and her dogs,” she hissed, and lunged at him.

It was a moment, Father had told him, an awareness descended from his father before him, when you could see where death lurked on a hroa. Maeglin had always seen it, and had never once hesitated to exploit it.

She was overextended, by a mere, insignificant inch, and the weakness was there. Maeglin’s hand wrapped around the blade of Anguirel, and with a twist of his body, knocked her off her path. Her arm went wide, and he barely registered a lower tone of multiple roars under the loud, noisy ship Galadriel was straining to hold up.

He was in the moment. Nothing else mattered, and he twisted further into her guard as she stumbled. With a twist of the hilt, the edge of the blade  _ bit _ with a disgusting separation of flesh, and the woman dropped like a stone onto the ground, her head almost severed from her neck. Blood sprayed across Maeglin’s face, and he stared down in silence at the body at his feet.

Violence for the sake of violence, was it?

Such a waste.

“Ada?” A small voice asked, and Maeglin turned on his heel, blood dripping off his face as he took in the sight of his tiny, tiny son standing there, hands pressed together as he stared up at Maeglin with painfully large eyes.

Quickly, Maeglin wiped his tunic sleeve across his face, and then fell to his knees to open his arms. Like an arrow from a string, Faeglyn charged to him, throwing himself into Maeglin’s arms as four armored Men landed down in the field with Tarre.

“... Did you just kill Darth Ventra?” Lord Vizsla asked in disbelief as Maeglin gathered Faeglyn close, ran his hands down his torso to check for injury.

“If that was her name,” Maeglin replied distractedly as he pulled back for Faeglyn to check him over with fervent focus. “ Mala-tyë, onya? ”

“Fó, Ada, ” Faeglyn replied, and Maeglin framed his face in his hands, thinking to rebuke, but…

There was a whine, and then a  _ boom _ as Galadriel finally let go of the ship to let it crash behind them, and Maeglin dragged Faeglyn in on instinct at the shake of the earth, his hands very nearly trembling as he held him close.

Lord Vizsla approached, looking between him and Galadriel as she came up behind Maeglin, and the four armored Men behind him all tilted their heads in unison to take in the curious sight before one of them held out a hand. The one next to him begrudgingly slapped something into it, and he smugly pocketed it as Maeglin brushed Faeglyn’s hair out of his eyes.

“I assume you got your familial difficulties worked out?” He asked dryly, and Maeglin snorted, the sheer insanity of the situation finally hitting him.

“Absolutely not, the People never resolve familial issues. We just die bitter,” he shot back, and someone behind him reached to gather a black lock of hair in their fingers and tug, a gentle admonishment.

“Maeglin has always been facetious,” she said with a perfectly polite smile.

“You haven’t seen me in  _ several thou--- _ ”

“Maeglin,” Galadriel said mildly, and Maeglin bit back a retort as he climbed to his feet and lifted up Faeglyn.

“I hope I didn’t kill anyone important,” he said with a blinding smile directed at Tarre. “It will not happen again.”

One of the armored Men coughed out a laugh, and turned aside, and Maeglin blinked as Lord Vizsla stared at him blankly.

“You just killed a Sith that has been marauding as a pirate in the Mandalorian sector since being cast out by the Order for the past five years,” Lord Vizsla said slowly. “She’s killed three hundred people. And you took her out in a two minute fight.”

Maeglin slowly blinked, before looking back at the body on the ground. Faeglyn twisted to see what he was looking at, and Maeglin landed a firm hand on the top of his head, turning it back and away from the corpse.

“If you consider  _ that _ someone hard to kill, it’s a wonder any of you are alive,” he said flatly, and crouched down to keep Faeglyn on his hip while he picked up Anguirel. The blade was wiped on his pants, and he turned to Galadriel. “Faeglyn needs a bath and a nighttime routine. Is there anywhere with cover I can retreat to, or are there laws regarding homesteads out here I must abide?”

“Oh, no, you just killed a notable Sith, you have a target on your back now,” Lord Vizsla said, and Maeglin’s stomach dropped into the soles of his feet. “Jedi Council will want to recruit you, half a dozen Sith will want to kill you for stealing  _ their _ kill. You’re coming back to Kelbade so I can keep an eye on you.”

“... I am?” Maeglin asked dangerously, and Lord Vizsla stared him down.

“You are.”

Maeglin considered digging in his heels, kicking up a fuss, but… Well. Faeglyn was hungry.

“Where is Kelbade?”

“Just on the other side of the sector, on Mandalore,” Lord Vizsla said, and Maeglin blinked. Sector. Galadriel had said sector, what was sector…?

  
“I just got here and you want me to go into the  _ sky? _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just what we're doing now. Dumpster fire. Sorry for subjecting y'all. Not sorry for saying Annatar and Maeglin fucked. I do not take criticism.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Ada, maita - Father, hungry.  
> Rato, hondo-ninya - Soon, my heart.  
> Mala-tyë, onya? - Are you hurt, my child?  
> Fó, Ada - No, Father.


	3. Chapter 3

Maeglin had hated quite a few things in his life. It was an unfortunate side effect of being an intensely miserable person, with far too many opinions to really lend himself to being a _happy_ person. It was a character flaw, and one of the more egregious ones, in his opinion, because it impacted him personally. He had hated Turgon, and Tuor, and Eöl, and all of Gondolin. He had hated Melkor, and he had hated hangnails, and tangles in his hair, though he had stopped caring right around the point Faeglyn got colic the first time, he hated an untidy workshop, and lukewarm food, and meat, and he _especially_ hated being told what he could and could not do. He hated being touched, and hated starry eyed dreamers that thought goodness was worth fighting for, and a sword that had balance that was just _slightly_ off, and people springing surprise plans on him, and he hated patronizing statements, and now he had found something new to hate.

Space travel was _awful._ He had parked himself in the cockpit and refused to look away from the blur of stars.

There were a lot of reasons that space travel was terrible. The first reason was that he was an _elf,_ and elves had notoriously sensitive ears. Starships did not care for sensitive ears, apparently, and the drone that was likely barely there to the other Men on the ship might as well be a volcanic eruption to him.

The second reason was _also_ because he was an elf, and used to seeing things coming at him from very, very far away. He could not see _anything_ coming at him like this, and he _detested_ it. So, here he was, Faeglyn quietly sat between his feet on the floor, munching on some food a Man named Vren had given him, glaring at the endless blur of ‘hyperspace’ like it was going to reveal something to him.

Supremely unhappy.

He could hear someone approaching, and his temper steadily rose with every heavy, armored boot step falling in the hallway. Slowly, he sunk down further and further into his seat, arms crossed and glare firmly locked on the window. His rage was rising at the idea of having to _deal_ with someone, but he couldn’t quite _pick_ a fight. Not only would Galadriel scruff him like an unruly kitten, he was in a precarious position here, dependent on the grace of these Mandalorians.

The door behind him slid open, and that was still taking some getting used to, and Maeglin didn't even have to look to know it was Lord Vizsla. This heightened grasp on the world around him had made it relatively easy to know _presences,_ and Maeglin…

Wanted to stay angry, but Vizsla was warm like the heat of a forge, and comforting like a summer rain on bare skin. Quiet, like the winds gently whispering sweet nothings to the leaves on the trees, and Maeglin almost abhorred him for feeling so… so…

So like a home.

How dare he.

"With a look like that, I wouldn't be surprised if I caught you trying to fight a sun," Lord Vizsla said in amusement, and his presence flickered in bemusement at something new, amusement at Maeglin's discontent, and _honestly,_ did he _mind?_

"I would win," Maeglin snapped, petulant and frustrated, and Faeglyn tilted his head back to lift two messy, sticky hands, and Maeglin was never one to deny his son anything. With a sigh, he bent over and set him on his lap, and Faeglyn leaned forward to stare at the blur of white-blue with wide, gleaming eyes.

“I'm sure. You haven't eaten?” Lord Vizsla asked, and took a seat in the chair next to Maeglin. The ellon’s nose crinkled up in distaste, and he turned away.

“Our little ones are growing. We eat less,” he replied, because technically speaking, eating was just a means of getting more energy, and he didn't _truly_ need it generally, only eating once a week or so. Faeglyn, on the other hand, needed it, because he was tiny, and he was sprouting like a weed, and would be for another two years before he fell to a normal rate. “And I do not consume meat.”

"No?" Lord Vizsla asked in something akin to surprise, and Maeglin's eye twitched.

“Many of us don't,” he said, because if they didn’t _truly_ need food, except once in a blue moon and for hospitality, what was the sense in killing something? They weren't like Men, needing to eat several times a day, how _horrid._ “I’m fully grown. I don’t require much food to be in good health. So there’s little sense in killing a beast if I don’t entirely need it.”

Which was ironic, considering how often elves killed _each other,_ and how many elves Maeglin himself had killed personally, but self awareness was for those who were interested in responsibility, and the only responsibility Maeglin had was in his lap. However, the difference in killing elves and deer was the fact that elves actually irritated him, whereas deer minded their manners and left him alone and didn’t incense him, nor did they make priceless gems and silly oaths and wage wars and act surprised when actions had consequences. Maeglin had _never_ been surprised when his actions had consequences, thank you kindly. He tried to _avoid_ consequences, but they never were a _surprise._

“Hm. Must be why I've never seen Fay eat,” Lord Vizsla said as Maeglin tucked his hands under Faeglyn’s arms and twisted him to face him.

_“Má, ecë nin?_ _”_ He prompted, and Faeglyn stared up at him for a very, very long moment as Maeglin stared down. _“Faeglyn, silumë._ _”_

Slowly, Faeglyn lifted up two dirty, sticky hands, and Maeglin licked his thumb to smooth it over his palms and then scrub at them with the hem of his tunic. Faeglyn pulled a face and squirmed back, and Maeglin caught him on instinct before he could pitch off his knees.

_“Dar,_ _”_ he said with a frown, and Faeglyn let out a tiny noise of frustration. Maeglin could already feel a headache coming on. He needed a nap, and Maeglin had no concept of a sleep schedule when they were literally _in_ the night sky. How immensely aggravating.

“You could ask for something to wipe his hands with,” Lord Vizsla said, and Maeglin paused as something ugly he couldn’t identify twisted in his gut. What _was_ that? “I mean, it must be difficult to wash his hands with a shirt.”

“He’s fine,” Maeglin said, the words feeling heavy on his tongue as he tried to place what was so uncomfortable about the offer. “We manage fine.”

Lord Vizsla was silent, and Maeglin relaxed his grip on Faeglyn’s hip, tilting his head back to watch the blur of the stars around them. He didn’t understand it. This was almost too much to grasp, too much to comprehend, and everything felt wrong and unsteady. Mandos had sent them here for a second start, despite how little Maeglin had deserved it, for the sake of a child. Honestly, the only _reason_ Maeglin was here was because of Faeglyn, because it had been kinder for him, and…

Something twisted in his stomach again at the offer. There was something _wrong_ about it, and…

Oh.

No one had ever offered before.

Yes, that was something to come to terms with later… much, much later.

Maybe never.

“... Did I cause you offense?” Lord Vizsla asked, and Maeglin looked over at him.

“No.”

“I’m not familiar with your home customs.”

“We’re a proud people, but you didn’t cause offense, no.” Faeglyn started to squirm in Maeglin’s lap, and he begrudgingly let him slip down. He needed something to drink, always got so fussy when he ate something and didn’t have something to wash it down with, but Maeglin didn’t have anything on hand for him.

The toddler paused on the floor, hands twisted in the hem of his shirt, and Maeglin’s stomach dropped again at the sight of his slowly dropping shoulders, the tightening of his spine, and his hands itched to reach again as Faeglyn started to shake, overwhelmed by the sound of the ship, the input, how tired he was.

Lord Vizsla saw, perhaps felt it coming, too, and the Man stiffened next to Maeglin, already reaching for Faeglyn as a tiny sniffle worked out. There was a hitch of a breath, and then a tiny, tiny whimper, and Maeglin was struck with the memory of little ones that cried openly and loudly, with no qualms as to who heard.

Faeglyn had always learned to be quiet.

Another sniffle, a hitch of breath, and Faeglyn turned back around, crashing right into Maeglin’s legs and burying his face between his knees as he softly cried in hitches of breaths and silent sobs. With a sigh, Maeglin picked him back up, settled him on his lap, coaxed him to lean against him as Faeglyn’s little hands reached up to try to cover his ears.

“We… have sensitive ears,” he muttered, though it struck his soul to admit. “This ship is very loud.”

“Our sleeping berths are quieter,” Lord Vizsla offered. “It’ll be a few more hours before we reach Manda’yaim. May I show you?”

Maeglin paused, and Faeglyn let out another whimper, his tears leaving Maeglin’s neck slick and wet.

“Please,” he said, and Lord Vizsla stood.

“You may need rest, too. You can have my cabin,” he said and turned for the door. “Come with me. I might have some ear plugs laying around that will fit him.”

Maeglin didn’t have the faintest idea what an ear plug was, but if it worked, it worked.

Damn the tender hearts of Men.

* * *

Tarre fell down against Fay in a lump with a long, drawn out groan.

“Okay, what is the story there?” He asked. “I have to offer _everything,_ he won’t ask for a single thing, and I don’t know the faintest thing about your species that will make this easier for them.”

Fay hummed noncommittally as she continued to fill out her report to the council, hands flying across the screen of the datapad.

“Maeglin is complicated,” she replied, like that was some kind of answer. “I don’t believe since the birth of his son, he has ever received help. In the slightest. He’s likely forgotten how to ask.”

Something uncomfortable twisted in Tarre’s gut at the admission, and he frowned severely.

“Why didn’t you help? You said he’s young.”

“Not quite two hundred yet, yes,” she replied. “Our species has a strange aging process. We stop after a certain point. To Men, he is the equivalent of maybe twenty, give or take. He was a teen father, and made some… wretched choices out of spite and anger.”

“So his child had to suffer for it?” Tarre demanded. “Or is it normal for toddlers to not throw full on temper fits?”

“Not at all, they can be quite loud,” Fay replied wryly, like she wasn’t bothered in the least by the picture Tarre was seeing. “Maeglin was… Well. I wasn’t in a position to assist him, essentially. He was the son of my first cousin, Aredhel. His father was… admittedly terrible, incredibly abusive, and Aredhel got caught in the crossfire when Maeglin was very young, and words for us… have a certain weight to them. Eöl, his father, cursed him as he died, and Maeglin… Well. He was rather unsteady after the event. We have no idea what his childhood was like, but you felt the presence of his sword, Anguirel.”

Tarre had indeed felt the presence, and had he not had a child with him, had Fay not sent him to collect him, he would have thought him a Sith in Mandalorian space and challenged him on sight. The sword itself was clearly cursed, though evidently not with Sith magicks. It felt _alive,_ sentient, twisting and uninterested in Tarre, solely focused on its wielder.

“His father made the blade. It was just the sort of thing Eöl did. He was a good smith, as was Maeglin,” Fay continued. “Just based on the presence of the sword, I believe his childhood was not a happy one. I don’t even really believe Aredhel was there by choice, but she was always a dreamer. She always thought she could change those that did not want to be changed. Perhaps she felt that for Eöl, at the start. Taming her own beast.”

Fay paused thoughtfully, tapped her fingers on the edge of the pad as she really thought about what she was going to say next.

“I don’t believe she realized the severity of the situation until… the birth of Maeglin, actually,” she said, like it was a revelation. “She always wanted many children, but she stopped after him. I don’t fully know what happened in the halls of Eöl, but I imagine it was… bleak.”

“So, he was raised in an abusive household,” Tarre surmised, and Fay paused, her face twisting into something ugly.

“Yes. He tried to find solace after his escape in Aredhel’s family, but they… Well. There’s not so much you can do when someone is young and angry and can’t see past their own pain. I think he only truly settled down after… After he single handedly betrayed her family and pledged himself to a Valar, another species from our planet, a higher power, that burned their hidden civilization to the ground, and spelled the end of the First Age. Maeglin… his son was born in the midst of that battle, after his wife died in his arms when she was struck by a bolt from the Valar’s invading forces, some say. Others say he killed her himself, but I'm not sure how much I believe that, meeting him and Faeglyn now. I do know Maeglin cut Faeglyn from her stomach, and was… displaced, here, to Concord Dawn, three years later. Time is not linear for us. I lived for several thousand years after his death, and I quite forgot about how his story ended. I remembered what he did, but I think I… forgot about the tragedy, and how young he was. We all did. The loss of Gondolin was extremely fresh for us. Even three years later, for elves, who do not die except on the blade, or by choice, it… well, it may as well have been hours. Which may be why he never received help.”

Fay frowned down at the datapad in front of her, clearly lost in painful memories, and Tarre had never known she was so old. He knew, of course, but he himself was stuck in time, unable to age after an unfortunate incident with a Sith, so he had some understanding of immortality, but Fay was... Not something he could fully comprehend.

“If I recall correctly, when Faeglyn was first born, some six months after his birth, Maeglin was found again and pursued by elves and the hordes of Morgoth. He tried to surrender Faeglyn to kin, tried to give him up to ensure he had… something, but they had been bitten once and refused him. We… In order to displace us here, our _hröar_ has to die first. Our bodies. We have two facets of our existence: the _hröa_ and our _fëa,_ the physical body and the grace contained within, what you may call a soul. Maeglin… To him, his and his son’s _hröar_ must have perished hours ago. He’s going to be… unsteady for awhile. Faeglyn likely doesn’t fully comprehend everything that happened, but he has spent his entire life entirely dependent on Maeglin, with limited exposure to anyone else, and very rarely was that exposure _positive,_ and Maeglin was unsteady at best before his birth. They will need… help, and Maeglin is not going to know the first thing about asking for it. He likely doesn’t even know that he _can._ ”

“So you have to manage it,” Tarre said, and Fay crinkled up her nose.

“I thought I had already drank my fill of raising children,” she said, almost distastefully. “Mandos certainly has a sense of humor. Of all the children to send…”

“Fay,” Tarre said, disapprovingly, and Fay shot him a glance.

“Yes, I will _help_ him, if only because Mandos has asked it of me,” she replied in a huff. “Though what possessed Mandos to send an ellon like _Maeglin_ to a universe like _this_ is beyond me. I dearly hope he has learned his lesson, because I will not be teaching it.”

“What sort of lesson would that be?”

“To not play dangerous games,” Fay muttered darkly, and then paused. “Though I suppose after his unfortunate alliance with Morgoth, he would likely find Sith humorous at best, downright childish at worst.”

Tarre blinked at that as he tried to reason the fact that he had been made _immortal_ by one run in with a Sith too big for his britches, and his brows drew together in blatant confusion.

“You think he would?”

“Oh, absolutely. Try as they might, Sith are not Valar,” Fay said cheerfully. “Valar made our planet. Mandos himself can send a soul to another plane of existence with no effort at all. Morgoth made ripping a _fëa_ from its body and corrupting it into something unrecognizable look easy. It was a hobby for him, actually. Though Morgoth wasn’t a _Valar,_ just of their species. Aulë created an entire sentient species, his children, the dwarves, as a side project. Of course, he got into trouble for it, but he _did_ make them. I’m quite certain one look from Varda would leave them in tears and repentance. She placed the stars in the sky, as we understand it, though I now think she may have just shaped the atmosphere of Arda, and I highly doubt the Sith would impress her. Maeglin, after such an unfortunate run-in with Morgoth, would think they were children playing with toys that don’t quite fit into their hands.”

Tarre blinked slowly, trying to process all of this, his mind going a mile a minute as he tried to _understand,_ and Fay smiled at him slyly as she set the datapad aside.

“The average common elf could probably take down a platoon of Sith with minimal effort,” she reassured him. “Maeglin is a high born elf, a direct descendant of Finwë, and his grandfather, Fingolfin, was the only ellon to actually maim Morgoth’s body. None other could accomplish such a feat. Lines mean quite a lot to elves such as us, and Maeglin would have little reason to stray from the path for such little fleeting power. He’s the son of god slayers. He will be fine.”

“... Oh,” Tarre said faintly, because he didn’t even know _how_ to react to that, and Fay tilted her head.

“Was that too much information at once?”

“I’m finding it a little difficult to believe,” Tarre admitted, and Fay hummed as she tucked her feet under herself.

“Believe what you will,” she said dispassionately. “The point of the matter is that Maeglin and I have some bad blood, but I have received a task, and I aim to complete it. No one truly guided him into adulthood, so it would seem that I am rehabilitation detail. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. Now. Why on _earth_ did you want to take him to Mandalore?”

“Can you imagine how the Council would react if I just set him loose? I would have to lie on my report,” Tarre complained. “They’ll want to at least have a holo conference with him.”

“Well, I wish you the best of luck with that,” Fay said wryly. “He always did take after his father in the aspect of hating to answer to _anyone._ I doubt that has changed to any degree.”

“... You’re speaking differently,” Tarre said quietly, and Fay blinked, like it was a shock to her. Her mouth opened, and then shut, and color crept up her dark cheeks as she realized her err.

“Ah. I suppose I spent so much time talking to Maeglin…” She trailed off. “I didn’t even switch to Quenya…”

There was a pulse from his old friend, a twist of mournful sadness, hurriedly dashed away and released to the Force, and Tarre realized that she had just found out she left behind an entire culture and people for a traitor and murderer, someone that had likely killed her own family.

And a baby.

There was a baby involved, and that was likely the only thing softening the sting.

“Should I not trust him?” Tarre asked softly, and Fay paused, her eyes going a little distant. A long silence stretched out as she tried to find her words, shape them into something physical, something that could be expressed, and a thought that was not Tarre’s own danced across his mind of a little girl, wet skirts hitched up around her knees as she tried to catch tadpoles.

“Elves can’t help but love our children,” she said finally, looking far, far away as her thoughts danced in the past. “His father… I think it was because once upon a time, Eöl loved Maeglin so fiercely, that made his fall that much harder. And Maeglin will carry that for the rest of his life. The memory of how Eöl loved him, even if it was a twisted, ugly thing, built on possession rather than genuine affection, a desire to hold him, a fear of letting him go. So…”

She trailed off, and then smiled.

“If elves know how to do anything, it’s how to learn from our mistakes. It takes trial and error and pain, but we do, and Maeglin has felt enough pain to last a thousand lifetimes. So you should trust that he will love his son.”

Tarre was silent, thinking of the ellon clinging to a tiny child like Faeglyn was his only lifeline, thinking of how Maeglin was clearly exhausted, wrung dry. He thought about how he led Maeglin to his bedchamber and the ellon collapsed in the bed, arranged a still-sniffling Faeglyn on his chest like it was as easy as breathing, thought about a teenager running from a burning city, clinging to a newborn child, and…

Yeah. He had only just met Maeglin, but he thought he could trust that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some exposition for those who need a brush up on the Silmarillion/haven't read it!! Maeglin as a dad WILL be Mando bait because I said so. Tarre is going to fall in love SO fucking fast lmfao
> 
> tumblr: [ psychicshr00m](https://psychicshr00m.tumblr.com/)


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